The 2.5-hour flight by Russian airline Pobeda took off from Berlin’s Brandenburg airport and was to land in Moscow’s Vnukovo, which was heavily guarded on Sunday.
Navalny arrived in Germany in a coma five months ago after being poisoned by Novichok, a military nerve agent developed by Russia during the Soviet years. After an extraordinary recovery, Navalny appears ready to return to his role as the thorn in President Vladimir Putin, apparently untouched by his close shave with death.
He thanked all the other passengers on the flight when he and his wife, Yulia Navalnya, boarded the plane in Berlin, according to a live feed from TV Rain.
“Thank you all, I hope we do well,” Navalny said. “And I’m sure everything will be absolutely wonderful.”
Several Western officials and Navalny himself openly blamed the Russian state for the poisoning, which the Kremlin denied.
Navalny told his supporters on social media on Wednesday to “come and meet me” when he lands in Moscow. He said his decision to return home was spontaneous.
Russian authorities responded quickly. The country’s prison authority (FSIN) said on Thursday that it was obliged to “arrest Navalny” before a court hearing he had to attend.
Moscow authorities have also issued a warning to those planning to meet Navalny at the airport, saying the city views the event as a demonstration without approval. In recent months, Russia has enacted several laws to suppress protests and authorities have arrested peaceful protesters.
In an Instagram message on Saturday, Navalny wrote a message thanking Germany, adding that Germans were “nice, sympathetic, friendly people”.
“Doctors and nurses. Physiotherapists and police officers. Many cops. The neighbors who invited us to drink, and those who allowed us to rent. Politicians and lawyers. Shopkeepers. Journalists. The prosecutors who questioned me at Russia’s request “Coaches. Teachers. And even once the chancellor. I had quite a wide circle of friends here. And I can only say thank you to everyone.”
Navalny, who has been detained several times by Russian authorities, was placed on his federal search list in the country at the request of the FSIN, which accused him in December of violating probation in a years-old fraud case that dismissed Navalany as politically motivated .
Now the FSIN alleges that Navalny violated the terms of his suspended sentence by not showing up for scheduled inspections.
The FSIN has asked the court to replace its suspended sentence with an actual prison sentence. A trial is scheduled for January 29, and if the request is granted, Navalny will likely be sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.
In 2014, Navalny was convicted of fraud after he and his brother Oleg were accused of embezzling 30 million rubles ($ 540,000) from a Russian subsidiary of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher. While Navalny was given a suspended sentence, his brother was sent to prison.
CNN’s Angela Dewan and Claudia Otto contributed to this report.